Planned as an epic trilogy chronicling the struggle of a high-fantasy universe against modern-day science and technology, GSC Game World's Heroes of Annihilated Empires has its first episode now sweeping onto the PC, and what a series debut it has turned out to be! Featuring a rich storyline, great characters, enchanting sights and sounds, and rock solid gameplay, Heroes of Annihilated Empires is a real-time strategy/RPG hybrid that you'd better take notice of.

This first chapter in the Heroes plotline introduces us to Aquador, a world shattered by war as the forces of good and evil are in constant conflict. The saga here more specifically focuses on the island land of Atlans, where you take on the role of a nobly defiant Elven ranger named Elhant as he stands tall to defend his people against a pestilent invasion of undead that have aimed their wrath towards the Elven city of Argos, or the City of Dawn.

Much of the plot is formed around conventional fantasy legend and lore, with countless tributes paid to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Heroes can be seen as somewhat cliché because of that. However, because of a strong lead character, an extraordinary scope, stellar voice acting performances, a sweeping orchestral score, gorgeously produced CG videos and animated comic book-stylized storyboards that present the narrative, as well as a solid script crafted by renowned Ukrainian fantasy writer Ilya Novak (who is also working on a series of five books detailing the story of the videogame trilogy, two of which have already been released in Russia and should be published on these shores at some point), the story is wildly engrossing from start to finish, laying the foundation for a memorable three-part gaming epic. And although the series' overall promise to combine fantasy with modern technology isn't in full force with this first instalment, a few intriguing hints are subtly placed throughout to set the table for the unique plot continuation that is yet to come - you'll have to play for yourself to find them though!

In following this tale, Heroes' single-player campaign takes you on a wondrous journey spanning sixteen chapters and a whopping thirty hours (or more) of playing time. Throughout this lengthy adventure you confront undead armies and other typical fantasy foes like orcs, goblins, gnolls, spiders, rats and giants, in a hybrid gameplay structure that successfully melds the RTS and RPG genres into one, with many inspirations and ideas drawn from games like Warcraft III, Heroes of Might & Magic and GSC's own Cossacks series. Although you can't necessarily choose to play the game as either an RTS or RPG like the back of the box suggests, since each mission basically dictates how you have to play at that time, the game still seamlessly marries the two styles, with grand results.

Heroes plays out from an isometric bird's eye viewpoint in standard RTS fashion, and very much functions like an RTS at its heart, with you largely commanding Elhant and armies of individual units over sprawling maps, clearing out enemy creatures and bases. Depending on the mission at hand, RTS staples like base building, resource gathering and unit training are all here to be enjoyed for hardcore strategy fans, as are mind-blowing battles of unprecedented scale consisting of thousands of units onscreen at once. Managing such massively scaled confrontations can be somewhat daunting and complicated at times, due to a hit-or-miss camera system that only barely allows you to zoom in on the action and occasionally makes it difficult to keep track of your units - but thankfully a clean and intuitive overall control interface compensates for this fault.

While the RTS-centric style is all well and good, Heroes really spreads its wings and showcases its true quality once the deep RPG elements take hold. As the leader and hero of your army, Elhant gains experience with every undead beast that falls at the edge of his sword or precise shot from his bow, and as the experience racks up you can improve his abilities with various modifiers that boost offensive and defensive values, movement speed, health and magic pools, and so on. In addition, Elhant can be outfitted with all sorts of magical armor, equipment, spells and potions that increase his capabilities even further, all of which can be found by completing side quests, defeating optional monster encampments or purchasing them at local alchemist labs, magic libraries and artifact masteries. Helping Elhant evolve his skills over the course of the game becomes remarkably rewarding and addictive, and if you play it right he eventually becomes capable of slaughtering huge armies single-handedly by the time this first part of his journey ends.

Unfortunately, while the gameplay is solid, there are some issues at hand that needed a little more tuning. By this I am mostly referring to the spotty AI, which can be easy to take advantage of in certain circumstances. For instance, with small groups of creatures you can equip Elhant's bow and arrow, pull the creatures from their starting place, run away until they lose your scent, and then while they are returning to their origin you can pick them off without breaking their AI routine. Once they are back where they started, only then will they turn to attack you once again, at which point you can repeat the entire process over again until you've wiped the horde out without taking a lick of damage - though keep in mind that this exploit doesn't work during the more frequent larger scale battles.

Another area that could use some extra tweaking is the multiplayer component. As an aside to the solo campaign (and skirmish mode), Heroes also incorporates online play for up to seven players (along with LAN play too). Playing online enables you to take on other players using one of four races - Elves, The Undead, Mechanicians and The Cryo, each having three hero characters and different unit and building types to utilize. As of now there are only five maps available to play on (two of which were just added in a post-release patch), and that's pretty limited. During online play you are provided the choice to take on your foe(s) in any way you choose, either in typical RTS warfare or by developing your hero on the surrounding creature fodder like an RPG and going into battle alone. The only problem is that the combination of the two styles doesn't feel completely balanced yet and overall the gameplay itself just doesn't seem to work as well for the multiplayer arena as in the single player experience. However, with additional patching and two more games still yet to come, Heroes' potential for gripping multiplayer is sky high.

Graphically Heroes has already reached its potential, displaying some splendid scenery and visual effects. Running on a proprietary game engine, a unique visual style is provided that incorporates fully 3D environments with 2D character sprites so to allow the engine to render thousands of units on the screen without causing the frame rate to falter. It certainly can't compare to the groundbreaking tech witnessed in RTS powerhouses like Company of Heroes, especially in the case of its bland character sprites (when viewed closer), but it still puts slick graphics techniques like bump mapping, vertex shaders and terra-morphing to spectacular use in rendering detailed landscapes, architecture and geometry, eye-popping spell effects and subtle ambient effects such as trees swaying in the wind, with a lovely painterly art design that works in perfect harmony with the fantasy atmosphere.

There are some small design flaws and there isn't any huge innovation in the RTS or RPG genres, but in the end Heroes of Annihilated Empires is a fine hybrid title that tells a captivating tale, complemented by a stellar cinematic presentation and gameplay that is challenging and rewarding, not to mention compulsively addictive in an old school dungeon-crawler kind of way. If the first game is this compelling, I can't wait to get my hands on the next chapter!

Reviewed by Matt Litten for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).